My friend is pretty epic, I love her dearly and she and her husband are so mild mannered that it would shock you to meet her child. He is amazing, like seriously the kid is genius bright and has a stubborn streak a mile long. We were sitting down and she said "I just love seeing other peoples kids throw fits in the store. It gives me hope." I laughed so hard because she smiled her precious smile and her adorable dimples came out and we continued on in our day but that moment truly stuck with me. When I go to the mall and here someones kid screaming I giggle inside and almost wanna take a video and share it with her because it gives her hope. You see Nic and I never took our girls anywhere when they were little. We learned very early our minions didn't leave the house. So I cannot speak to my friends plight but she definately speaks into my thoughts. I don't know if you are ever like this too but seriously I do just wanna see the ugly moments people have. We hide our crazy, or we know how to cover it well, and I think when we are not real with where we are we loose a part of us that we need for our next season in life.
I am an acheiver by nature so for me I have learned to be a quick study, adapt, and keep pushing through to meet my goals in certain areas of my life. Like the visible ones, the social media ones, the profile ones. But it was the areas of self care, personal development, and relational capital that I missed out on. Because these were boring. and they tripped me up. I would push my feelings back down and push through them rather than dealing with them. This you can only do for so long and my emotions made themselves very known. You see the goal and task oriented stuff didn't trip me up, but the emotional toll of gossip, manipulation of others, and people telling me they didn't believe in me broke me. To look in the face of someone you wanted so desperately to believe in you, and they couldn't even see you as having value. That moment , I broke and I shattered dear friends and I never thought I was going to get out of that dark place. I just want you to know that sitting in a coffee shop with tears streaming down my face as I looked at my husband and said "I am not okay, and I haven't been for a while." This led to two weeks in a medicated state on my couch while I would sleep on my husbands lap. I was not okay, and if you are not okay I want you to know that is okay. I was encouraged to seek a counselor, but living in a small community I felt like their was no safe place for me to talk. I wanted to die, I lost my will to live out any sort of purpose that God had for me.
After two weeks of Xanax, I made some decisions, hard ones. I knew I couldn't keep living my life medicating the pain and trying to make a situation right that would never be right. Leaders hurt me, I had to live with it. People labeled me, I had to learn to push past it and not let others define me. You don't know how strong you are until you walk through ugly moments where no one is saying "I'm sorry" except you and people feel justified in treating you poorly. The past year of my life I have looked and I see awesome moments, God moments, beautiful moments, happy moments, but I have very rarely found honest ugly moments told. We celebrate the finished product but we seldom cheer the process. You my friend may be in your ugly moment, hard, broken, fearful. You like me may not be able to share details of those moment and feel so alone. But know you are not alone. God is right there with you but the scars that you have gotten at the hands of those you trusted will speak to others and give you weight if you are willing to walk it out. Here are two things I want to give you if you are in this hell I call the middle.
1. God loves you, let yourself feel it.
I worked hard, really hard. I worked full time, did full time ministry and didnt once question that this is what I was supposed to do. I jumped through whatever hoop that was placed in front of me and I didn't once think "what do you do if this doesn't work out?" I led small groups, I served on Sundays, and I let my whole value be placed in what I did rather than who I was. So when I couldn't jump through any more hoops, God took me on an amazing journey through self discovery. When everything was telling me I was a failure I never once heard the voice of God confirm that. No in my journals during that season I wrote down what God was speaking "I love you, seek me no one else." You see we choose what we worship. I thought the leaders in my life would help me fulfill God's call on my life, and although it hurt horribly I am glad God didn't give me what I wanted. He instead led me down a path that was all faith, no one cheering me on, except Him. I had to let myself be loved by God
2. Let go of those who don't love you and know your heart.
I live in a smaller community and everyone talks to everyone about everything. So it was no shock that when I had lunch with a friend one day we talked. She lovingly said to me "Cassie, you don't have a following of people who want to see you succeed, you have one that wants to see you fail." She said "But here is the thing, God is with you so don't listen to those who don't know your heart." I learned to quit letting people who weren't for me into my inner sanctuary. Yes, you choose who you let in and you are not a revolving door. I have spent much time letting go of those who don't know my heart, and only asking the few who are close to me their opinions. I called my friend this week and as I was writing this blog a lot of hard memories came back up. I told her "this is what I am thinking" to which she, who knew my heart then challenged my insecure thoughts with that of truth. I let myself off the hook and quit letting the opinions of others make or break me.
3.Don't miss your beauty
Many people travel and see the world, they live it, they love it, the adventure is so beautiful to see, in its beauty sometimes we miss our beauty. Some of us get to be a part of a persons world coming to an end, it changes us. I may have never seen the world, but I have felt a hearts last beat, seen a body's last breath, held a widows crying body, and gave dignity to someones last moments on earth. I wanted to change the world, do something great, but I realized that the only world that matters is what I worshiped and who I loved. We want to be a part of s omething great, its in the meaningless moments, the uncomfortable moments, the broken moments. My most worthwhile moments can never be on instagram, they are definately not tweet worthy, snapchat just couldn't capture those moments because their is no filter to make what I do look good. Those moments normally have me covered in someone elses body fluids, or emotionally deep in someones hell and helping them walk it out. I walk away changed from those encounters. I don't sleep sometimes, I suffer from anxiety other times, I fight depression, the desire to numb my pain and the pain of others in a bottle of wine till I am numb and unable to feel. I struggle to see my life as significant, and honestly in a world that wants the perfect shots I miss my candid, ugly moments because it looks like an utter mess compared to the life of others. Embrace where you are, all of it, because it is just as sacred as
Lovely ones I wish I could tell you life is easy , but it isn't. I wish I could tell you every moment is a finished product, but it's not. When you take your last breath, that is when the product is finished. We run our race focused on the prize and staying on the path. I can't say that I have enjoyed every single moment but I can say I enjoy where I am now. There is hope for you in these ugly moments, don't loose hope. Some times you run, some times you stretch, some times you rest and sometimes you walk.
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